


Haronniin

by byzantienne



Category: Foreigner Series - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantienne/pseuds/byzantienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jago finds felicitous preference in what is new, what is unexpected, what is unusual.</p><p>(HARONNIIN: a system under stress, needing adjustment)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haronniin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [servantofclio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/gifts).



Jago finds felicitous preference in what is new, what is unexpected, what is unusual. This has been true of her for her entire life. It was a principle reason for her admission to the Guild of Assassins as a young person, though of course not the entire reason; moreover, it was a preference that was a foundational number in the equation of her man'chi. How could she not find her man'chi tending towards Tabini-aiji, a lord who reached for unprecedented advancement and delighted in the acquisition of revolutionary ideas? As if the Lord of the Western Association drew them down like rain: or, more correctly, like ship-paidhiin, falling to atevi ground. Such a man'chi was both unsurprising and gratifyingly welcome, easy simplicity and excitingly firm foundation.

Jago finds felicitous preference – the paidhi would say, in Mosphei' she does not officially speak, that she _likes._

She does not like. _Like_ is a sort of intoxicating mysticism, for the paidhi. Jago is not intoxicated except when she chooses to be.

She finds association with the tendency towards surprise and those who are capable of it natural. She is, perhaps, _attracted._ Banichi would tease. Banichi does in fact tease. Jago allows this because Banichi is entirely correct to do so.

In the dark of the tent, with his clothing carefully removed along with hers, Bren-ji is so very pale. Atevi do not come in that shade, a sort of pinkish pale gold that reflects like a beacon. She has not bothered nor tried to remove the white paidhi ribbons from his braid. They kneel across from each other on the thin and quite unsuitable mattress, and he puts his hands on her hips, and Jago is abruptly giddy. The rain is loud, and they are surrounded by persons who hold man'chi towards the dowager-aiji, and tomorrow will be very exciting and uncertain, and Bren has put his hands on her bare skin. Humans are a small fraction warmer than atevi. She has known this both theoretically and practically – she has carried Bren and touched him and they have been pressed closely together under fire – but now she knows it _intimately_ , felicitious third way of knowing. She is quite happy, she decides, and reaches to press her palms to his flesh in turn. Her hands slide down the delicate curve of his spine and his breathing goes shallow. The span of her palms covers his shoulderblades. She feels them move when he strokes upward, up her waist and over her ribs and to her breasts -- _clever_ , paidhi-ji! – and settle hesitantly with one of his thumbs against the rise of her nipple.

He strokes it, feather-light, and she shivers, and he shivers when she does. There is common autonomic response after all. So she reaches down and closes her hands over the backs of his thighs and pulls him flush against her, a long shock of heat. His pelvis rests against her thighs, her hips against his belly. The shallowness of his breathing turns into a low rasp of sound.

She can see better in this lack of light than he can. Bren is not as expressive as Jase-paidhi; Bren is very like an atevi in his expressions, except in the dark. In the dark his face flickers through concern and fascination and something that could be either fear or desire. Both, perhaps. Humans might feel both. His hands squeeze. He is not being hesitant. Jago thinks abruptly of Malguri, of telling Bren _I won't betray you_ , of assuming that he'd understand what she meant. Mistake. She does know it is a mistake to think that a human, even a human like Bren-ji, can _feel_ man'chi. She had wanted him to know that she considered herself within Tabini's, and considered him likewise, even then, even before he'd shown her to have been right all the way through the necessary incident in the cellars. She'd been – drawing him in. Banichi would say. Pointing the direction. But he is -- he is quite brave, the paidhi.

One of Bren's hands comes to the nape of her neck and she wonders if he knows what that feels like, what it makes her want to do. She imagines, vividly, his teeth there. She says, "Yes," thinking he won't realize how she's warm and gone a little desperate, liquid all through. He says her name, just _Jago-ji_ , acknowledging breath, and presses his face to her collarbone. Presses his mouth there, open, sliding. Wet. She slides her hands up the backs of his thighs, up and inward, between his legs. There's more hair, there's the same pale hair that looks so well with white ribbons, all the way up his thighs in warm curls just over the skin, damp with sweat. Human blood chemistry smells acidic. It is pleasing, sharp and odd and unmistakeable. Her fingers dip into the place where his legs join, first behind the sac that holds his organs-of-generation and then against it. She holds it inbetween finger and thumb, her entire hand a tangle in the close warm space. Humans carry theirs outside of the body. She doesn't know why. She's seen medical photographs – she's seen Bren without clothes – the rest of the male generative organs are similar, _feel_ similar too, shoved up against her thighs – Bren's mouth leaves a trail of spit down the ridge of her breastbone and he presses down with his hand on her neck and she makes a choked-off sound that she wishes could be louder. Squeezes her fingers around that small sac of generation, feels the seeds inside shift.

Bren brings his hands up in a gasp. It's one of the gestures atevi and humans have in common, the hesitant _wait, stop, no_. Hands off her. She misses them immediately. So she takes her hands off him, too, and tries another thing.

Her mouth on his. Her tongue against his tongue. Her breath in his mouth and his breath in hers and now he makes a new sound, a sound that is like a cry, a crooning. Mosphei' is a beautiful language, or it's a beautiful language in Bren's mouth, it's that same – that same preference. Felicitious preference for what is _other._ Now his hands come back, they sink into her hair and against her neck and then he pulls her toward him – pulls her toward him and she _falls_ into his mouth, falls over him, they are lying on the bed. His thigh slips between hers and she rocks against it. Heat. They are connected through the mouth. She wants – she wants him to talk, which is quite funny. The paidhi, talking. Talking into her mouth.

She knows, rationally knows – she is not feeling very rational right now, she is feeling a little like drowning, like breathing is drowning and warm and right, Bren's hands _scrape_ , Bren's knee shoves upward against sensitive flesh, she wonders if human women like that much bruising pressure, if they're as external as human men but less sensitive? – Jago rationally knows that when Bren behaves in ways that declare his man'chi to be of the same nature as hers, when he stands in front of the hasdrawad and betrays the interests of the Mospheiran _presidenti_ and even his own biological kin, the house of his mother and his brother, in favor of the interests of Tabini-aiji, he is not motivated -- not emotionally motivated by the groundswell _rightness_ -feeling of knowing one's own man'chi. Jago knows this, rationally. She nevertheless remembers seeing Bren perform these actions and feeling their correctness in her throat and her gut, the recognition-connection of _that is how I would behave if I was what he was_ , the _we are aligned_.

Like they are now, mouths. Aligned. One language, without words. She wants to do this again somewhere where it is not important to be mostly silent.

She spreads her thighs open and slides up his leg and against his pelvis, her weight on him, lightly, humans are fragile -- he bites her lower lip. His hips thrust up. They do _not_ felicitiously align. They in fact align completely wrong. She raises up, tries again. Her hand around the shaft of him, positioning (he gasps, their mouths separate, her lips on his cheek and jaw), and she brings her hips down and -- she does not bend, internally, in the right direction. Or he does not. It is awkward. They slide. It is at least slick. There is that. 

He says something which amounts to an elaborate and stammering apology in a formal mode which is completely inappropriate to candle-burning talk, the intimate speech between sexual partners. He apologizes as if he's _offended_ her in public, which is twice wrong -- there is nothing less public than this and she is not offended. She is warm all through, and a little frustrated. She shifts her hips in a broad, flat circle, and he shoves his forward all out of phase, and they get nowhere. Jago thinks _mishidi_ , awkwardness regarding the position of another, all despite herself. The word does not apply to physical positioning and it is suddenly very funny. Extremely funny. She tucks her face into the curve of his neck and laughs, small sharp giggles she cannot quite help.

Bren cups his hand over her nape -- how can he learn so quickly and have this still be so vastly ineffective? -- and says, "We have to practice this in daylight. This is exhausting."

So she pokes him in the ribs, and he laughs _with_ her and curls up, protective reaction. So _very_ sensitive, the paidhi.

The thunder cracks above them and he jumps, flattens out, presses himself to her again. They are -- _she_ is, she especially is, slick to the point of _wet_ , and when she pulls her arms around him again they fit differently, his organ pressed against the curve where the muscles of her belly arc over her hipbone, damp enough to slip easily when he thrusts and there is -- some -- rhythm that is agreeable, agreeable and _fast_ , and she has her eyes open so she can watch, in the dark, while Bren goes to pieces for her. Tension and release. There are more muscles in the human face. There are new expressions to remember.

When he is still again she winds her fingers in his hair. The ribbons are terribly disarranged now. She'll rebraid them herself, if he'll let her; he ought to. The paidhi ought not to appear less than presentable. Neither should the paidhi's security. She pulls him closer still, throws one of her legs over his side, settles them. Warm. Not _quite_ satisfying. But pleasant. For her. She hopes also for him.

She wonders if his human women held on afterward, or if Barb-daja had not been so demonstrative. She is uncharitable towards Barb-daja and has every right to be, in her good opinion. Bren is worthy of respect and he has said -- has said to her, for Tabini-aiji's ears but to her specifically, said _my man'chi is still towards the office and the aiji_ and _his regard even above my life_. She is going around in circles, somewhat. She is reassuring herself. She wonders if _like_ also creates such spirals of reassurance, if Bren-ji feels them now.

"Was it pleasant?" she asks him.

"I enjoyed it," he says, perfect Ragi, her language and idiom, not merely _pleasant_ , felicitous-yes, but _enjoy_ , personal-yes, his numbers added to hers with confirmation. And that is enough. That will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> A take on That Scene At Mogari-nai, but hopefully one with some new and interesting perspectives. Thanks for the lovely prompt; any opportunity to write close-POV reverse xenokink is a joy, and Jago's a joy all to herself.
> 
> Felicitous Yuletide greetings, nadi~


End file.
